Aversive olfactory associative memory loses odor specificity over time.

Avoiding associatively learned predictors of danger is crucial for survival. Aversive memories can, however, become counter-adaptive when they are overly generalized to harmless cues and contexts. In a fruit fly odor-electric shock associative memory paradigm, we found that learned avoidance lost its specificity for the trained odor and became general to novel odors within a day of training. We discuss the possible neural circuit mechanisms of this effect and highlight the parallelism to over-generalization of learned fear behavior after an incubation period in rodents and humans, with due relevance for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Spermidine Suppresses Age-Associated Memory Impairment by Preventing Adverse Increase of Presynaptic Active Zone Size and Release.

Memories are assumed to be formed by sets of synapses changing their structural or functional performance. The efficacy of forming new memories declines with advancing age, but the synaptic changes underlying age-induced memory impairment remain poorly understood. Recently, we found spermidine feeding to specifically suppress age-dependent impairments in forming olfactory memories, providing a mean to search for synaptic changes involved in age-dependent memory impairment. Here, we show that a specific synaptic compartment, the presynaptic active zone (AZ), increases the size of its ultrastructural elaboration and releases significantly more synaptic vesicles with advancing age. These age-induced AZ changes, however, were fully suppressed by spermidine feeding. A genetically enforced enlargement of AZ scaffolds (four gene-copies of BRP) impaired memory formation in young animals. Thus, in the Drosophila nervous system, aging AZs seem to steer towards the upper limit of their operational range, limiting synaptic plasticity and contributing to impairment of memory formation. Spermidine feeding suppresses age-dependent memory impairment by counteracting these age-dependent changes directly at the synapse.

Genome-Wide Association Analyses Point to Candidate Genes for Electric Shock Avoidance in Drosophila melanogaster.

Electric shock is a common stimulus for nociception-research and the most widely used reinforcement in aversive associative learning experiments. Yet, nothing is known about the mechanisms it recruits at the periphery. To help fill this gap, we undertook a genome-wide association analysis using 38 inbred Drosophila melanogaster strains, which avoided shock to varying extents. We identified 514 genes whose expression levels and/ or sequences co-varied with shock avoidance scores. We independently scrutinized 14 of these genes using mutants, validating the effect of 7 of them on shock avoidance. This emphasizes the value of our candidate gene list as a guide for follow-up research. In addition, by integrating our association results with external protein-protein interaction data we obtained a shock avoidance-associated network of 38 genes. Both this network and the original candidate list contained a substantial number of genes that affect mechanosensory bristles, which are hair-like organs distributed across the fly's body. These results may point to a potential role for mechanosensory bristles in shock sensation. Thus, we not only provide a first list of candidate genes for shock avoidance, but also point to an interesting new hypothesis on nociceptive mechanisms.